Award Recognizes Patient Care Innovations Created by MU and Cerner
Collaboration improves health information technology for patients with chronic illnesses
The University of Missouri and Cerner Corp. (NASDAQ: CERN) have received a national award for innovations in health information technology. Their collaboration is helping patients with chronic illnesses, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
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George Carr
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MU and Cerner are partners in creating projects for exemplary health care and health professions education. The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) recognized how the partnership is improving care for patients with chronic illnesses by presenting MU and Cerner with the Collaboration Award.
“Our awards committee was impressed that the collaboration between MU and Cerner went beyond the application of a product,” said Anne Wizauer, CHIME’s senior director of membership development. “They saw that the innovation involved in the project was above and beyond business as usual.”
MU and Cerner began working together in 2006 to improve electronic medical record technology. One of their new products allows primary care physicians to quickly access a single screen that summarizes the majority of information needed to understand the condition of a patient with chronic illness. In the summary screen, clinicians also have access to decision-making clinical resources and other data to help them provide the best care possible.
The CHIME Collaboration Award recognizes that MU and Cerner formed a partnership resulting in a product beneficial to both organizations and patients, said Michael LeFevre, MD, professor of family and community medicine and chief medical information officer at MU.
“We believe that by improving the flow of information and making the type of information we present to providers easily available, we will improve the care of patients,” LeFevre said. “That’s why we did this, to improve the lives of patients.”
MU and Cerner are focused on deploying information technology to help health care providers and individuals improve the management of chronic illnesses. Development to date has focused on improving the flow of information in the physician office setting, getting evidence-based guidelines to the point of care, and management of populations rather than individuals through the use of quality reporting tools.
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CHIME
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MU and Cerner call their collaborative effort to help patients The Medical Home, where a personal physician leads a team to coordinate care for patients across the complex health care system. By June 2009, University of Missouri family medicine practices will use the new technology to track the treatment of patients with the 12 most common chronic illnesses.
George Carr, chief information officer for University of Missouri Health Care, accepted the annual Collaboration Award on Oct. 24 at CHIME’s fall forum in Henderson, Nev. CHIME was established in 1992 to serve the professional development needs of health care chief information officers and advocates for more effective use of information management within health care.
